How do I research keywords? This is a common question I get from clients. And my immediate response is… Long Tail Pro! With the update to Google Adwords Keyword Planner (rendering it near worthless) without paying for Google ads and to test actually search volume for keywords, the generic Avg. search volume range they provide gives you ZERO actionable data! See example below:
"I've been doing keyword research for years, and I can tell you that dealing with hundreds of keywords and dozens of spreadsheets is enough to make anyone lose the will to live. Keyword Researcher is great because not only does it let you easily find keywords that people are actually searching for, but it has a clean and simple interface that makes it easy to keep track of what you've found. If I'm stuck and need some new ideas, I just fire it up and usually find several things to write about in a few minutes."
Before you can put it to use and start making Long Tail Pro pay for itself, you first need to understand exactly what Long Tail Pro does and how it will benefit you. The number one benefit and feature of Long Tail Pro is that it helps you analyze the competition in Google much faster and more effectively than if you tried to do it only using free tools.
The link back to googles API is crap – it keeps coming up with password authentication which renders it virtually useless when trying to find your own rank. Sells you the software initially. But then tries to sell you a load of stuff afterwards which effectively tells you the first version you have already paid for is useless without the extra “bonuses”. Not a nice way of doing business
It's important to check that you have a mix of head terms and long-tail terms because it'll give you a keyword strategy that's well balanced with long-term goals and short-term wins. That's because head terms are generally searched more frequently, making them often (not always, but often) much more competitive and harder to rank for than long-tail terms. Think about it: Without even looking up search volume or difficulty, which of the following terms do you think would be harder to rank for?
5. Use the Keyword Competitiveness “Fetch Now” feature. Now that your list is trimmed down after you applied all those filters in the previous step, you use the KC “Fetch Now” feature that saves you time in retrieving all that invaluable information. Again, depending on the number of keywords it has to check it make take a while (remember that LTP needs to retrieve information from several sources including Google and Moz). During this bulk check if LTP prompts with Google captchas to fill out, just close the software and wait 10 minutes to reopen it and continue your work. (This issue should have already been fixed now with the latest updates to the tool.)
Trying to rank for the keyword “Best Headphones” will see your post, page, or article buried in the depths of a billion search engine pages, and it’s never going to surface in the top thousand pages, let alone page one…ever! But going for a keyword, or Long Tail keyword phrase “What are the Best Headphones for Sleeping” will stand you in better shape to get somewhere close, or even on, the first page.
Now that I’ve been using Long Tail Pro for several years to successfully find great keywords – I can confidently tell you that Long Tail Pro will more than pay for itself if you use it properly. Whether you are a blogger, a niche site creator, an affiliate marketer or even just an article writer – doing proper keyword research will help you be more profitable. Doing proper and effective keyword research with Long Tail Pro is super fast and easy. It’s so easy in fact – that it’s not hard at all to offset the cost of the software by putting it to work for you. And I’m going to show you how within this post.
As for the history of the company, as I explained, I created Long Tail Pro back in 2011. At the time, I was creating tons of niche sites and was doing alot of keyword research and content creation. I was trying to figure out what types of keywords would rank quickly in the search engines, specifically Google, and I was frustrated with the other keyword research tools (in particular Market Samurai) out there.